Four Keys to Dealing with Overwhelm

Key #1 to Dealing with Overwhelm: Fuel and Rest Your Brain Like an Athlete

 Overwhelm is an actual physical thing.

 As business owners, we do a lot of high-level thinking, analysis, and problem solving every single day. These important activities take place in our brain’s pre-frontal cortex.

 The pre-frontal cortex is powered by oxygen and glucose and like other parts of the body, needs proper nutrients and rest to perform at its optimal levels. You can think of your pre-frontal cortex as a rechargeable battery. When the pre-frontal cortex is fully charged it serves us incredibly well, but when it’s out of juice, so to speak, we need to concentrate more to complete our tasks, and so, we become irritable, and we start craving sugar foods for energy.

 When the brain strain continues, we start forgetting things and we lose our ability to take in new information. At a certain point beyond that, for example if you don’t sleep well for several nights, the pre-frontal cortex can just shut down to protect itself, or in other words, our thinking ability freezes up and we can’t carry our daily tasks.

 So, from a purely physical standpoint, our initial protection against overwhelm is to eat right, get a good night’s sleep, and take brain rests during the day.

 Ask yourself, did I miss a meal? Do I need a break? Often just refueling and resting your brain is enough to get you on track